


Method Acting

by virdant



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Food, Identity, M/M, Murder, Musical References, a lot of musical references, not quite as zany as the tags and summary may make it sound
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-26
Updated: 2018-03-26
Packaged: 2019-04-08 04:47:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14097531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/virdant/pseuds/virdant
Summary: Instead of being a psychiatrist, Hannibal is an actor in the local production of Sweeney Todd.





	Method Acting

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Mika and Pann for, as always, providing prompts. Thanks also to Adzusai and Ellie for answering my demands for musicals offhand. Here is, per Mika's request and Pann's enthusiastic seconding, "Musical Hannibal".

 

Sweeney Todd made his bows, grateful and refined in a way his performance hadn’t been; he had descended into violence and madness, a gleam of perverse delight in the cant of his head as he slashed his way through the entire musical.

Will slouched in his seat in the balcony, clapping in time with the audience, the program sitting limp and wrinkled in his lap. He had accepted the program when he came into the theater, taken a cursory look through it, and then crumpled it between twitchy fingers the entire time.

Sweeney Todd bowed and this time, when he straightened, he was all Hannibal Lecter, former surgeon, now community actor. This far away, Will hadn’t been able to make out his facial expressions beyond the broad slashes of savage delight or somber grief, but there was something about the body language; he didn’t _relax_ , per se, but shifted into a different beast.

Will leaned forward.

Lecter bowed, again, and gestured to the rest of his cast, as gracious as a king bestowing a boon on his subjects. This time, Will could see: as clearly as if Hannibal Lecter had stepped out of his costume and donned a new one.

He stood up as the house lights turned back on, shuffling his way down the aisles. There was a table in the lobby piled with collectable programs printed on laminated cardstock—large ones filled with color photos of a dress rehearsal rather than the flimsy piece of A4 paper folded in half that he held still crumpled in his hand.

“Can I talk to Dr. Lecter?” he asked one of the women behind the booth, when he had finally made his way to the front of the line. He fumbled for his FBI badge to avoid eye contact. The badge usually worked.

“What do you want with him?” one of the women asked. She leaned forward, her voice lowering dramatically and not at all inaudibly. “Is he in trouble?”

“Just to get to know him,” he said. “That’s it.”

 

* * *

 

The body was curled upon itself—Amanda Lewis, 35, accountant—it had been placed in a field of flowers as golden as her hair and as vibrant as her blue eyes. She had been cultivated with love, raised freely, and slaughtered for her meat.

Will had stared at the body, his heart thrumming in his ears. There was a rhythm to his pulse, like the beat of a song, the melody just out of reach through the distant harmony of the forensic team making the rounds. He closed his eyes, and inhaled: freshly cut grass—the death throes of a plant fending off a grazing animal—cut, not crushed, to form a hollow where the body would rest. He opened his eyes, and the murderer was slicing her open, reaching into the cavity of her chest to pull out soft tissue from its cage of bone, blood slick on his hands.

He breathed, and in the distance he could hear music: the wind singing, as if the hills were alive.

 

* * *

 

Once, Dr. Hannibal Lecter had been an eminent surgeon in Johns Hopkin’s emergency room. He had done a brief stint as a psychiatrist where he had mentored Alana Bloom before suddenly quitting his practice to join the Baltimore local theatre community full-time.

Will shoved his hands in his pockets and studied the costumes hanging on a rack in the curtained-off dressing room.

“I must admit to curiosity,” Dr. Lecter said, because it was Dr. Lecter, not Sweeney Todd, sitting before him wiping off a layer of foundation with a wet wipe with a steady hand. His movements were tightly efficient, unlike the sweeping grand gestures of his role. “What does the FBI want with me?”

“You know Alana,” Will said. There was a water stain that had spread through three of the ceiling tiles. “She mentioned you.”

From the corner of his eye, he could see Dr. Lecter tilt his head, attempting eye-contact through the mirror. He said, thoughtfully, “Dr. Alana Bloom.”

Will jerked his head in a nod. 

“And how is Dr. Bloom?”

“She’s fine,” Will said. “She said you could help.”

“That is good to hear,” he said. He, again, attempted eye-contact through the mirror, his hair lank against his skull where it had been pressed down by the wig cap. “Very well. How may I assist you?”

It was a cramped space, made even smaller with the round table in the corner, empty, a single chair tucked under it. Will stared at it. He didn’t sit down. “What do you know about musicals?”

 

* * *

 

His name was James Hall, he was 41, and he worked for Congressman Comyn. They found him on the steps of Baltimore City Hall, limbs splayed as if he had been smeared across the ground.

“Clear the area!” Jack shouted, and Will could see.

The knife had been sharpened to a fine point, so fine that he sliced through skin and muscle and thick fat with ease, parting the layers aside to reveal the cage of his ribs, each one broken as if smashed with a mallet.

The killer had taken his heart, cutting it out while it still beat in panicked _allegretto_. Heartless. The killer had taken his lungs, slicing them out while they were still full of breath. Didn’t deserve the air he breathed. The killer had taken his kidneys, chopping them free from their ureter. Nothing but a waste—

The killer had taken the meat and left the remains. Taken a cleaver and hacked the body in two. Pulled out what’s inside and served it fried.

Will stepped back. Jack Crawford stood before him, a pillar blocking the sun. He said, the memory of grilled meat still lingering on his palate, “He’s, um… he’s eating them.”

 

* * *

 

“Have you heard of method acting?”

Will turned, and met Dr. Lecter’s gaze involuntarily, reflected as it were by the mirror. He had shed his costume for a three-piece suit in pale blue. He was knotting a paisley tie with ease, eyes fixed on the mirror but gaze focused on Will in the corner of the curtained-off room.

Will said, his mouth dry, “Are you saying you’re the murderer?”

“Am I a suspect?”

“No,” Will said. 

Dr. Lecter’s gaze didn’t waver, even as Will turned away, scanning the bouquet of wildflowers in a tasteful vase on his dressing table. It was a riot of color underneath the harsh lighting. “We are a collection of events, experienced and assimilated into our self regardless of career choices. Do you feel that you have brought your experiences to your work?”

“My work?” Will was startled enough to meet Dr. Lecter’s gaze, again, through the mirror.

He inclined his head, just a fraction. 

Will studied the flower arrangement. “Do you bring experiences to your work?”

“Yes,” he answered, candidly. “I bring all of my experiences to my work. Every moment, as if I have consumed it and made it a part of my self.”

“So do I,” Will said.

“And the result,” Dr. Lecter, former surgeon, former psychiatrist, said in measured tones so unlike his descent into madness on stage earlier, “is as if you are a mirror, reflecting the best parts of yourself to an audience.”

Will met his gaze, for the third time.

He stood. He had shed all of the trappings of Sweeney Todd—the wig, the makeup, the costume. Dr. Hannibal Lecter inclined his head, his expression as still as statue in the mirror. “Performance takes a toll. Would you like to continue this discussion over dinner?”

 

* * *

 

They had found Christopher Williams dead by a dozen cuts, thin slivers cut out of the epidermis to reveal the dermis, the hypodermis completely intact. The lawyer, well into his fifties, had been arranged on the top level of the Baltimore Street Garage, shirt opened to reveal the twelve lashes carved out of his chest.

Will knew: he had driven to the top floor of the building and levered the body—still alive, still breathing, still unconscious—out of the trunk. He had carved fine cuts from the body, tender muscle along the bicep for steaks, fat rump for a marbled roast, lean meat from the well-exercised thighs for a jerky.

But the torso, he had left alone. Instead, he had sliced a dozen thin slashes into the very top layer of his skin, carving out gashes in an otherwise pristine torso.

“Different from his usual,” Jack had said, after they had taken the body back to the morgue, “leaving the torso intact. Alright, why this guy?”

Will had shaken his head. “Would I know,” he had murmured.

Was he sensitive? Clever? Well-mannered? Was he considerate and passionate? Charming and as kind as he was handsome? Was he as wise as he was rich?

Will thought of the killer. _Is he everything you’ve ever wanted?_

 

* * *

 

Hannibal let Will in after a brief knock. He had parked on the curb, his car incongruous among the carefully manicured lawns. Inside, his home had the cavernous familiarity of the woods surrounding Will’s home in Wolf Trap, so unlike the bright lights in the dressing room nook that they had created for the actor of Sweeney Todd.

“I am very careful about what I put in my body,” he said, leading Will into the kitchen. “So, I prepare most meals myself.” Already, his ingredients were arrayed _mise en place_. Will settled himself in the armchair in the corner when gestured. “I do hope you don’t have any dietary restrictions.”

Will said, “No.”

It was not Dr. Lecter that kneaded pie crust and browned the ground meat, but Hannibal, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, an apron tied around his waist. His movements were tightly efficient, but there was a freedom in them; Will had noticed the restraint in Dr. Lecter compared to Sweeney Todd, but now he noticed it in regards to Hannibal.

And it was Hannibal, now.

“How did you get into acting?” Will asked.

Hannibal’s hands stilled, and then he resumed kneading. “Did you not read the program?”

“I want to hear it from you,” Will said.

He rolled out the dough. “As a surgeon, I fixed bodies. As a psychiatrist, I fixed minds.” He pressed it into pie tins with strong and precise movements. “My patients, once cured, moved on with their life.”

Will closed his eyes. He was pressing the crust into the tins, his hands lined with a layer of fine grease from kneading the heavily buttered dough. He had buttered the tins earlier, to prevent them from sticking. He would fill them with meat, top them with another layer of crust, brush them with egg whites so they would brown in the oven, and then serve them.

They would eat together, a meal shared.

“As an actor,” Will murmured, eyes closed, “as an artist, I forge a connection; they will look upon my art and carry a piece of me wherever they go.”

Hannibal said, a single note articulated _marcato_ , “Yes.”

Will opened his eyes. Hannibal had not stopped in his preparation, and now he ladled the ground meat into the tins. Will asked, “Do they?”

“Do you?”

 

* * *

 

His hand had been steady as he sliced her abdomen open. A knife sharp enough to sever the elasticity of skin—cut through fat to the flesh underneath—in his hand. It belonged there, the handle seemingly molded to the palm of his hand. He knew how to use this knife, he knew the body, he knew, from years of experience, how to reach in into the cavern of a body.

She was alive as he removed her kidneys. Maria Hernandez, he just met a girl named Maria, and suddenly that name would never be the same. She gasped, and how wonderful a sound could be, the last breaths of a pig.

He had taken her kidneys and liver before grinding down the rest of her entrails. He stuffed her full of the ground meat, and it spilled out of the ragged gash in her abdomen. She was nothing but a pig, worthless as the meat she was made up of, body arranged as if thrown haphazardly into the trash, her limbs covered with wilted cabbage leaves. No good for anything but sausage, and even that was worthless.

“Well?” Crawford had demanded. “Well?”

“She’s a grocer,” Will had said. 

She was, but how did he know? How did Will know?

 _Of course she’s a grocer_ , Will thought. _Look at her, she’s green_. 

 

* * *

 

They ate dinner in Hannibal’s statuesque dining room, a wall of herbs growing on one wall, lush and verdant despite the quiet darkness, the stillness of a building with old bones.

“The feast is life,” Hannibal said, serving the pies. They sat incongruous on the porcelain dishware—simple fare, elegant surroundings. “You put the life in your belly and you live.”

“You consume it, and it becomes a part of you,” Will replied, as if the words had come from him and not reflected off of the mirrors of his mind.

Will’s fork slid into the golden crust, and it flaked with a quiet crackle. He lifted a bite to his mouth, rich butter and browned meat, and it crunched beneath his teeth.

“Meat pies,” Will said, staring down at the browned meat, succulent and moist. It was as if he were staring into an abyss. “Getting into character, Doctor?”

Hannibal smiled, an eerie gash against his jaw, and sliced into his own meat pie. The knife flashed in the light, an echoing slash just like Sweeney Todd’s smile. “Tell me, is it flavorsome?”

**Author's Note:**

> A full list of musical references can be found on the corresponding [tumblr post](https://virdant.tumblr.com/post/172256170746/fic-hannibal-tv).
> 
> Kudos and comments always appreciated!
> 
> [[Reblog on Tumblr]](https://virdant.tumblr.com/post/172256170746/fic-hannibal-tv) [[Follow me on Tumblr]](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/virdant) [[Follow me on Twitter]](https://twitter.com/virdant)


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